Natural Consequences(4)
Amber felt many eyes still upon her as she took up an empty chair. “I only did the honors program in chemistry,” she confessed. “Physics is hard.”
“Amber, these are Agents Doug Bridger, Matt Lanier and Colleen Nguyen,” Hauser began as the lights went down and the projector mounted in the ceiling flickered to life. “They’ve all been on the task force for several years. You’ll be working with us for the foreseeable future in your hometown of Seattle.”
Amber blinked. She knew relocation was a potential factor in this transfer, but thought that train had left the station. “I’m not staying with the LA office?”
“No,” Hauser said. “No, that was just your audition. We had to make sure you wouldn’t freak out at the first encounter with a supernatural. Some people don’t take too well to seeing those kinds of abilities.” He paused, offering up a wry smirk. “Most people don’t respond by tackling the perp to the ground.”
She felt grateful the lights had gone down. It was a pretty sure bet she’d be blushing by now. She paid attention to the map of the west coast on the screen and its red, blue and green circles here and there.
“The west coast is something of a hotbed of organized supernatural activity. We’ve got large vampire societies in LA and San Fran and a couple of distinct werewolf packs spread out across the southwest. The vampires organize themselves in a somewhat feudal structure. There’s no discernible consistency of who claims what titles, but there are chains of allegiance. Many of those chains lead to this woman, Lady Anastacia Illyana Kanatova of Seattle.”
The slide changed, offering up a detailed sketch of a thin woman of regal beauty. She was blonde, with Eastern European features and a haughty, elegant look. “We have no idea of her original name or how old she might be, but she clearly dates back centuries. As far as we can tell, she’s the best-connected vampire on the west coast, with allies across the country. She’s in charge of a group of at least sixty other vampires in the Seattle area, which is one of the largest populations we’ve identified.
“They all vanished last month. We haven’t picked up a trace of them since.”
Amber blinked. Hauser shifted to the next slide, which showed multiple views of what must have been a large house—perhaps a mansion, judging by its footprint—that had burned down to the foundation. She had to wonder how long it had been burning before the firefighters in the pictures arrived. Even much of the grass had burned within an acre of the house, maybe more.
“We know that in mid-September, Kanatova held some sort of major party at this house in one of Seattle’s northern suburbs. We don’t know what the hell happened at that party. The fire burned so hot we can’t really piece together any physical evidence. Property records are suspiciously sketchy. We’ve matched several abandoned vehicles nearby to known vampires in the Seattle metro area. We’re sure at least some of the vampires survived, but they’ve gone to ground.
“Local authorities found one still-unidentified woman in the tree line with her head twisted almost in a full turn, and ashes from two vampires, along with their dresses,” Hauser said, clicking the slideshow along, “but that’s pretty much it. No human remains. No shell casings. Nothing.
“We’ve got wire-taps on vampires from here to New York and Miami, and everything indicates they haven’t a clue what happened, but they’re extremely concerned. They suspect it was a hit by another supernatural faction, but hits this size don’t happen.
“About a week before this incident, a similar fire destroyed a cemetery chapel in Seattle,” Hauser continued, shifting to a new spread of pictures. “Again, cause undetermined. Someone inside called 911, but left the phone off the hook without giving any info. No human remains were found. Nothing but ash.”
Hauser leaned forward on the table. His voice held steady, but his frustration couldn’t be missed. “Years of investigations. Thousands of hours of surveillance. Research. Solid cases, just waiting for a safe moment to nab the suspects. All gone up in smoke, without an explanation. And now we have vampires all across the country and probably beyond on a hair-trigger to retaliate.”
Amber glanced around the table. The expressions worn by her fellow agents confirmed that they all knew the whole story already. This briefing was specifically for her. “So we don’t have any leads at all?”
“One,” Hauser grunted. He clicked to the next picture.
She saw a typical cell phone self-portrait: bathroom mirror, sink in the foreground, towels on a rack on the wall behind the subject. The guy in the picture might barely be old enough to drink. He was skinny, with short, wet brown hair, a pale, mostly hairless chest and a towel wrapped around his waist. His thug-life posture looked so comical that he couldn’t possibly have taken himself seriously. In one hand, he held his cell phone. In the other, he held what appeared to be a wooden stake and a necklace of fangs.